Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi Applauds DHS Announcement on Textiles & Apparel Customs Enforcement Action Plan

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the CCP released the following statement on the recent announcement by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to develop and implement a new customs enforcement action plan for textiles and apparel. The new set of initiatives will help prevent violations of U.S. trade laws, safeguard American industry, and enforce free trade agreement rules.

“I am pleased to see the action taken by Secretary Mayorkas and DHS to combat illicit trade, including violations of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), that has had a severe economic impact on the U.S. textile and apparel industry,” said Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi. “After the letter sent to Secretary Mayorkas by myself and Chairman Gallagher urging immediate action to strengthen enforcement of the UFLPA, I want to thank Secretary Mayorkas for his direct involvement on this issue. DHS’s recent announcement is a positive step forward to addressing the widespread customs fraud that is harming a range of critical U.S. industries.”

The new enforcement plan by DHS, accounting for over 500,000 U.S. jobs, will serve as the blueprint for future strengthened enforcement efforts through intensified targeting of small package shipments; joint trade special operations; increased customs audits and foreign verifications; and the expansion of the UFLPA Entity List.

Specifically, the plan focuses on the following actions:

• Cracking down on small package shipments to prohibit illicit goods from U.S. markets by improving screening of packages claiming the Section 321 de minimis exemption for textile, UFLPA, and other violations, including expanded targeting, laboratory and isotopic testing, and focused enforcement operations.
• Conducting joint CBP-HSI trade special operations to ensure cargo compliance. This includes physical inspections; country-of-origin, isotopic, and composition testing; and in-depth reviews of documentation. CBP will issue civil penalties for violations of U.S. laws and coordinate with HSI to develop and conduct criminal investigations when warranted.
• Better assessing risk by expanding customs audits and increasing foreign verifications. DHS personnel will conduct comprehensive audits and textile production verification team visits to high-risk foreign facilities to ensure that textiles qualify under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) or the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). CBP recently visited 31 facilities in Mexico—the first such visits under USMCA—as well as 18 facilities in Honduras, and is on track to double the number of total foreign verification visits compared to last year.
• Building stakeholder awareness by engaging in an education campaign to ensure that importers and suppliers in the CAFTA-DR and USMCA region understand compliance requirements and are aware of CBP’s enforcement efforts.
• Leveraging U.S. and Central American industry partnerships to improve facilitation for legitimate trade.
• Expanding the UFLPA Entity List to identify malign suppliers for the trade community through review of additional entities in the high-priority textile sector for inclusion in the UFLPA Entity List.

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